NASA Sending Military Personnel to Space Station

The Department of Defense has proudly announced that two active-duty US military officers will be launching on board SpaceX's upcoming Crew-10 mission to return NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. Air Force major Nichole Ayers and US Army colonel Anne McClain — both NASA astronauts — will be joining Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov on the mission. "The Department of Defense is proud to have multiple branches, and two active-duty U.S. military officers represented in this mission," enthused defense secretary Pete Hegseth. The high level attention to the military space travelers highlights a renewed interest in the militarization of space under President Donald Trump's second term. The US Space Force was signed into law by Trump in late 2019, sparking a lively discussion about a "space arms race." While it's not enormously unusual to have active-duty military stationed on board the ISS — according to NASA, 2 ... Read full article.